Hitting the wall

I've been doing this job more than 15 and less than 20 years. In that time, I've seen some horrible stuff. I've seen the best and worst that humanity can offer up. And, most of the time I can find a way to draw on my own personality and strength to weather it. Other times, a whine or a drink puts me back on the path. But every once in a while, I hit the wall. It all piles up and I just need to blow.

I hit a wall today. I was actually rendered incoherent. Those who know me in person will understand what a huge event that would be.

Several years ago, the wall was some moron who tried to make it sound like my agency was total crap and my job and thus life were also total crap because there were water stains on our ceiling. If I'd been able to find my board president that night, I would have quit then. Enough of that crap.

More recently, the wall was our office flooding twice in the same week and the landlord or maintenance guy being totally unavailable to help me stop it or clean it up.

As you can see, the pattern is that it's never the actual job - you know, the helping people who have been shot, maimed, terrorized, or ultimately shamed that do it. It's always some fairly petty and stupid thing.

Today, it was our pagers. For the past couple of months we have been struggling with our pager company to actually provide us with the service we pay for. We have been using the same pagers with the same numbers for the ENTIRE time our agency has operated. The company we originally contracted with has changed hands more times than I can remember - but we have always dutifully paid our monthly bill and used this service. Only rarely have we ever exchanged or broken a pager. I thought we were the dream clients.

In June, we missed three crisis calls because the pagers were spotty in working. At first, we made sure it wasn't our answering service. Then, we turned to the pager company. First, we discovered that they closed their local offices and operate out of a neighboring state. Nice of them to tell us. But, they happily offered to send us new pagers to replace the sad, old ones. We got the new pagers - got them activated - and a week later, they didn't work again. They sent us yet another set of pagers - explaining that the frequency we've been using for the past many many years was shut down. The newer pagers NEVER worked. Finally, after many hours on the phone explaining the chain of events and trying to find a solution, they sent us a single pager on a whole new number with a different frequency to try. LO! it worked. So, we said send on the rest we pay for. 10 days later, we called to see why we had not gotten them -- and it was because they never sent them.

Today, having still not received promised pagers - which are crucial to the operation of our 24 hour crisis response - I called my answering service to see if they offer pagers too. They put me on with some guy who told me that my pager company may not have an office - but they do have a local rep who was really good and could probably solve my problems. He promised to put me in touch with her within 24 hours.

The fact that I've spoken to countless customer service people IN ANOTHER STATE - had multiple different stories told - total lies told to me - and they could have actually put me in touch with someone locally in the first place left me standing at my desk and saying things like

"ghhowoehnrro" and "hhnssoowleoobe"

I emailed the vice president of their company about this problem - and the moron never emailed me (or called me back). Every time I tell them I expect a credit on my account they act as if I said nothing at all. Every time they promise a call back we never get it. AND THEY HAD A LOCAL REP WHO COULD HAVE HELPED US ALL ALONG.

I still am tempted to find a new pager company because this crap is unacceptable. Or, maybe I'll go to the media. That usually renders results. ggggggggrrrrrrrrrr